From Americans United's Wall of Separation blog
I realize that people may be tired of reading about the saga of Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Ky., clerk who is in jail because she ignored a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. But on Friday I received a blast email from Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC), that is so littered with lies that it demands a reply.
This article by Americans United's Senior Litigation Counsel Gregory M. Lipper originally appeared on Harvard Law's Bill of Health blog.
Josh Blackman has replied to my post criticizing the Cato Institute’s amicus brief (which Josh coauthored) in support of the cert petition in the Little Sisters contraception case. My original post made two arguments: (1) if you take away the nonprofit accommodation, Hobby Lobby no longer supplies a rule of decision, because the presence of the nonprofit accommodation was what led the Court to conclude that RFRA barred the coverage requirement, and (2) if you prevent regulatory agencies from offering reasonable, tailored accommodations to their regulations, the result is bad for religious liberty.
This article by Americans United's Senior Litigation Counsel Gregory M. Lipper originally appeared on Harvard Law's Bill of Health blog.
Fresh of its unsuccessful attempt to gut the Affordable Care Act in King v. Burwell, the Cato Institute is back for more. This time, Cato has filed an amicus brief in support of Supreme Court review in Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell. This is one of the many, many (many) challenges brought under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) by nonprofit organizations to an accommodation, offered by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), exempting religious nonprofits from providing contraceptive coverage to their employees. To take advantage of the accommodation, nonprofits need only provide written notice to the government of their objection and the name of their insurance provider or plan administrator. At that point, the government arranges for the nonprofit organization’s insurance company or plan administrator to provide the coverage at no cost to the nonprofit or its employees.
Justice Antonin Scalia, as we all know, was very much against the Supreme Court's June decision on marriage equality. His scathing dissent was a veritable cornucopia of sarcasm, bewilderment and ire. But even he would agree that Religious Right poster girl Kim Davis should either do the job she is paid by the taxpayers to do or find another position that better fits her version of morality.
When we started this post, the Supreme Court had just denied Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis' plea for a stay of the preliminary injunction requiring her to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. It was a cheerful post, a post rejoicing to see that justice system worked. The sun was shining, the Supreme Court stuck to its decision, and all was right with the world.
And then we saw this.
Fresh off his rally for "religious freedom" in Iowa, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz warned an audience at the South Carolina "We Stand With God" rally that anti-Christian persecution, like the kind that terrorizes Christian businesses who refuse to serve same-sex couples, might be coming for their state.
Just a day after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied her motion for a stay of the preliminary injunction pending appeal, Kim Davis has reached out to the Supreme Court to issue the stay.
If you haven't had a chance to read Mark Joseph Stern's wry article about Georgia Sen. Josh McKoon, then you are missing out on all the ways the esteemed lawmaker has been trying to justify the failure of a "religious liberty" bill that died last spring.
Edited 8/27/2015, 2:50pm
Kim Davis is now planning to ask the Supreme Court to put the injunction on hold on Friday.
Kim Davis, embattled Rowan County clerk, received some bad news last night: the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied her motion for a stay of the preliminary injunction pending appeal. This means that Davis must begin issuing marriage licenses to both same-sex and different-sex couples, something that she has refused to do since the Supreme Court's marriage equality decision two months ago, despite a court order on August 12.
Not content with letting Kim Davis be the only Kentucky county clerk publicly humiliating herself with outdated opinions, Casey Davis (no relation) of Casey County took to the airwaves on "The Tom Roten Morning Show”.
Rachel Miller and her husband had made up their minds: with one small child at home and another on the way, they decided that their soon-to-be family of four didn't need any further additions. So when scheduling her C-section with her doctor at Mercy Medical Center in California, Rachel asked that her doctor perform a post-partum tubal ligation as a contraceptive measure. The doctor agreed. That should have been the end of the discussion. Unfortunately, Mercy Medical Center had other ideas.
Last week, 130 national organizations, including Americans United, sent a letter to President Obama asking him review and withdraw the OLC Memo and the "troubling policy [which] allows faith-based organizations to take government funds to perform social services for the public and ignore laws that prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of religion" contained therein.
If the rights of individuals are being violated, if people are the victims of unfair treatment, if they are made to accept lesser status in a society that strives for equality, if they are being told, in effect, “Get out, I do not serve your kind here,” then decent people have a right – indeed, a duty – to rectify that by all legal means, including litigation.
